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CHAPTER ONE

THE CHALLENGE

JACK MILLER WAS HAVING a bad year. Maybe even a bad life. First he’d been fired for one tiny lapse in judgement. Then, his fiancée had left him because he – quote – didn’t smile enough. He rolled his eyes. Like smiling would have satisfied Fiona. No, Fiona came with a list of things she needed in life to be happy. None of which he could provide on a police salary. So no, smiling wasn’t going to fix it. To top his year off, his favourite relative, Aunt Millie, had up and kicked the bucket.

He looked at the old house in front of him, which was now his latest problem. Aunt Millie had left him a house. For a minute there, he’d actually thought things were looking up. And then he’d discovered that not only had Aunt Millie left him a house – she’d left him a tenant too. A tenant who changed the locks without permission. He growled at the door and then at the useless key in his hand.

He reached for the handle again, hoping brute force would sort his problem. His hand didn’t make it to the door. Instead, he felt a blinding pain to the back of his head before he crumpled to his knees.

As the world faded to black, he thought he saw a playboy bunny leaning over him. Her smile was feral. A mane of wavy auburn hair dangled tantalisingly in front of him. He almost drooled at the sight of her long creamy legs as he began to sway.

“That’s for breaking into my house, numbnuts,” she said, before she pushed him backwards.

He hit the old veranda with a thud.

His last thought, before the lights went out, was that she had the craziest green eyes he had ever seen.

Jack lost consciousness with a smile on his face.

“Wake up.”

Words were nudging at the back of his head. It was proving difficult to open his eyes. He thought he heard footsteps.

“Wake up, you stinking thief,” a woman commanded.

Silence and then – what the hell? Jack shot upwards as icy cold water hit his face, only to find he couldn’t sit up. He spluttered and coughed. It all came back to him as soon as he spotted the playboy bunny smiling down at him.

“Are you trying to kill me?” he demanded.

“I’m trying to make sure I didn’t kill you. You’ve been out for quite some time.”

“Yeah, a blow to the head will do that to you.”

He moved his hand towards his face and didn’t make it. His head snapped round to see what the problem was. He could feel the blood vessels in his neck begin to throb.

“You tied me up?”

“Of course I tied you up. What did you think I was going to do with you?”

Her tone implied that he was the idiot in this scenario.

“You need to untie me. You need to let me go.” He used the voice that intimidated lifelong felons.

It had no effect on her.

“Not until we’ve had a little chat.”

She put the empty jug on the old rattan coffee table. Jack struggled against four brightly coloured pieces of silk. She’d tied him between the old posts on the veranda. He was lying spread-eagled looking up at her. Under other circumstances it would have been fun. His eyes narrowed as he wondered if they’d take his years with Brighton Police Force into consideration while sentencing him for murder.

“Stop struggling, those scarves were expensive. I don’t want them ruined on the wooden floor.”

“Yeah, the scarves are my main worry too.”

She took a deep breath. It seemed she was considering something.

“Listen.” She crouched beside him. “I’m not going to call the police, but I want to make sure that you won’t come back here again. What do you say? I’ll let you go, and you promise to go rob somewhere else?”

He blinked several times. She wasn’t calling the police? His instincts went on to high alert. Why wasn’t she calling the police? What did she have to hide? What was she up to? If she didn’t want the police snooping around, then he definitely did. Although, he had to admit, the thought of his old colleagues seeing him in his current predicament wasn’t that thrilling.

“What makes you think that I won’t rip off your pretty little head as soon as you free me?”

Once the words were out of his mouth he regretted them. He’d been so close to freedom and had to blow it with logic. He could see her tiny brain tick over. She hadn’t thought of that. She flopped into one of the lopsided rattan chairs.